


While the Lights Were Paling

by Misterkingdom



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Body Horror, F/M, Gen, Mildly Dubious Consent, Night Terrors, Obsession, free write, quick write
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-31
Updated: 2014-10-31
Packaged: 2018-02-23 09:49:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2543201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Misterkingdom/pseuds/Misterkingdom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Illusive Man is an idea. An Idea shared by many could be the difference between salvation and damnation. After all, what is religion if not an idea? An idea could twist into something of a shared madness as in a cult—<br/><i>The cult of Shepard. Though she walks through the valley of dying stars, she shall fear no reaper.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	While the Lights Were Paling

Jack Harper died on Shanxi all those years ago. There has never been time to mourn the individual when there was so much to be done. Besides, what is an individual but a mote of stardust scattered through the cosmic clouds of the universe? Jack Harper has become something so much more than an individual. He has become The Illusive Man.

 The Illusive Man is an idea. An Idea shared by many could be the difference between salvation and damnation. After all, what is religion if not an idea? An idea could twist into something of a shared madness as in a cult—

 The cult of Shepard. Though she walks through the valley of dying stars, she shall fear no reaper.

 Commander Shepard was—and still is—the prime example of humanity. The poster child of all they could achieve if the Alliance, Cerberus and every human took their rightful place amongst the stars and not let diplomacy cripple them.

 Unlike Miss Lawson, who is like peace in the galaxy—a beautiful and artificial lie—Shepard is pure.

 Umbriel Marie Shepard was born in a rat’s nest of gouging chrome skyscrapers and grime soaked alleys on Earth. She craved out a corner for herself by running with the Tenth Street Reds before giving up that life and joining the Alliance in a shallow attempt to erase her past. Her biotic skills were put to better use holding up gas stations and donating the stolen money to Earth charities—in his opinion.

 Long before she defeated Saren, she was known for something darker than the council would dare admit: The Butcher of Torfan. In that one faithful battle, she became starlight. She embodied every single ideal Cerberus stood for. She got the job done by any means necessary. She emerged from the ashes glittering with blood, her bones rag doll lose. She was victorious, broken and utterly, utterly human.

 He could never catch his breath after she died. Though he had never met her in person, he’d grown accustomed to the technological voyeurism of her godhead on the vids. Every battle hardened knot of flesh on her earth brown skin became his scar. Every flicker of desperation in her space black pupils became his. He lived for every glimpse of her switchblade smile against the sub-perfect, handsome cut of her jaw.

 Now she lies on a metal slab in the middle of a vast, sterile laboratory. She’s clad in a too short, virgin white t-shirt exposing her undergarments (Winnie the Pooh today. He’ll have a talk Wilson about his stylistic choices). The pristine sheet is crushed to her ankles, exposing her body to the harsh, white lights. Her flesh is pimpled with cold. Her toes (which are painted a sparkling red—something he’ll have a talk with Miss Lawson about. He’d thought the woman had impeccable self-control. Evidently not) peak just out of the sheets. He debated sliding up the cover to the sharp, hairless expanse of her thighs to conserve her modesty. He doesn’t. He needs to see how well the Lazarus Project is coming along.

 She’s no longer several pounds of flesh bound together by prayers and her husk of armor. She is sleeping beauty. She is an incorruptible martyr. She is wet, glittering and new under the white lights of the laboratory. Her body doesn’t remember the bone deep wounds and shards. They’re mended as if she’d never stepped off a shuttle and into hell. The tales of heartache etched into her skin—the evidence she bled for this galaxy—is not there.

 She’s disfigured by her perfection.

 He holds her in the twilight kingdom of purgatory. He’s her lifeline to keep her from floating adrift into the cold void of oblivion.  He’s trapped there with her. If he lets himself be swallowed by the vortex, pulled through the deafening silence of space and into her orbit—maybe he’ll find her waiting for him on the other side. 

 Failure is not an option.

 The Lazarus Project has reached the age of a year and six months. His top scientists think him mad for pouring endless funds to revive a woman he’s never met because he believes she is salvation personified. They don’t ask questions as long as they’re paid. They don’t understand the universe hangs by a thread. They don’t know what groans and twist in dark space.

 He sees her sometimes. In the small hours between the wolves and the birds. In the endless nights of space. Flinches of frayed memory bright with mechanical, celestial overexposure plays behind the curtains of his eyelids. Shepard rubbing the stabs of neon lights flashes from the cameras out of her space black eyes. The halo circling her new Spectre badge. The memory of rouge lipstick smeared on her lips. Her eyes were surrounded by false eyelashes threating to knock starships out of orbit. She’s being announced the first human Spectre. She’s a more alive behind his eyelids than she ever was to him in life.

 “How long will you keep me here?” She asks. Her voice chasm deep and heavy with the absolution of gravity. It echoes through the bright pinprick of stars against an endless black and slivered up his spine. She stands along against the cradle of dying stars. Her armor is crumpled around her like she’s been squeezed by an iron grip. The skin on her neck is melted with acid burns. Her fingers are all bent out of true like branches on a dead tree. Her face and lips are smeared rust red and purple with bruises. She smiles with an unhinged jaw. .

 “As longs as it takes.”

 Her laugh sends the celestial bodies to flinch and wobble around her. The spider web of tendons in her jaw stretched and released. “Just let me go.”

 The knife twists in his chest. “Never. Humanity needs you. I need you.”

 She walks along the edge of a bleached white sand beach with a black sea of stars rushing out to plant kisses on her heels. The earth is set ablaze above her. The dead planets go up in bloom of a fire with every step she takes until she gets to his edge of the universe. The limp of the gun crinkles the sharp line of his suit against his stomach. He does not flinch or pull away. He never does.

 Burned and matted hair peaks out of her crushed helmet. Her wide empty eyes meet his. “You want me to take the galaxy, not save it.” Her smile is sincere enough to showcase her broken, jagged teeth. “And if I do—“

 “Shepard.” He says too low for her to hear. Her breath smells of decay and metal. Her exposed, charred hand grips the curvature of his jaw. Her grip is as cold as the empty vacuum of space. She tightens her grip, the pads of her corpse cold fingertips, dug into his cheekbone.

 She looks up at him through stardust soaked eyelashes. She says to him without moving her lips. “Why should I give it to you?”

 Her touch turns soft as flower peddles. He leans into her finger as she presses her broken mouth to his ear. “The lights hurt my eyes, Jack.”

 He stands above the broken toy soldier on a slab. He debated pressing his lips against her cold, still ones. He instead brushes some wayward hair behind her ear.

_And you would murmur tender words,_

_Forgiving me, because you were dead:_

_Nor would you rise and hasten away,_

_Though you have the will of wild birds,_

_But know your hair was bound and wound._

 “Miss Lawson?”

 “Yes?” Miranda shifted her head to face him. It’s a willful gesture. The other operatives never made eye contact with him.

 “Have the commander dressed in her armor and ready for psychological testing within six months.”

Miranda watches him with a blank expression. If she felt any kind of way about his hand upon Shepard’s inner thigh, she didn’t say so. “Yes sir.”

 “And lower the lights to 50%. They hurt her eyes.”

  “…Yes sir.”

  _About the stars and moon and sun:_

_O would, beloved, that you lay_

_Under the dock-leaves in the ground,_

_While lights were paling one by one._

 

**Author's Note:**

> The title and poetry shards are from "He Wishes His Beloved Were Dead" by W.B. Yeats. Also, forgive my errors. I just felt like free writing for a bit.


End file.
